Carter in College
by 2016LucyV
Summary: This is set in Patti and Marg's "Games" universe. Their stories are wonderful and if you haven't read them - you should! This is one of Carter's first college courses. This is my first posted story, so, let me know what you think! Thanks for reading.


A/N If you haven't read any stories in the "Games" Universe by Patti and Marge, you should. They are wonderful! This story is set in that "universe".

Carter in College – Speech Class

Professor Morris was glad to still be teaching this introductory speech class for the college freshmen especially since it gave him a chance to get to know most of the students on campus. The class had already had completed the first speech, one that the professor called the "getting-to-know-you" talk. He told the students that they could talk about anything in their lives and gave a few examples, family, pets, favorite foods, hobbies, goals for the future and things of that nature. By listening to the students, Professor Morris was able to get an idea of the personality of these students. Richard was focused on the future and seemed to have his life planned out. Peggy was one of the giggling girls, probably looking for a husband. Cheryl was serious, maybe too serious. Steven was one of the immature students in class, probably just needed some time to grow up. And then there were some veterans from the war in the class. The professor was hopeful that they would add a maturity and a new point of view to the class.

The one enigma was Andrew Carter. The professor, after the first round of speeches, thought it possible that Andrew was not able to focus, he talked all over the place and ran out of time in his first speech. Granted, he had a large family, many pets and had only begun to tell the class that he was in the military, a gunner on an airplane and was shot down over Germany. At that point time was up, and if there was one thing the professor insisted on in that first speech was that it only last five minutes.

The professor had higher hopes for the second speech. This time, it was an impromptu talk, with the professor choosing the topic. Actually, the student pulled the topic out of the bowl on the desk. As he told them, these talks were not about "my most embarrassing moment" or themes like these. They were high school topics. This was college. The topics in this class were a little more thought-provoking. The examples he gave the class were "a time when I felt I helped somebody" or "a time I felt like a failure." These topics were universal and everyone could come up with a story to tell. And that's what the professor told them. "Think of it like a story that you want to tell us."

And that's what his students were doing. He was happy that they had risen to the challenge. There was only one more to go – Andrew's. The professor was anxious to see what topic he would draw and what story he would tell. Thank goodness there was no time limit this time.

The students in the class, the last one of the day, were beginning to shuffle in and Andrew looked a bit nervous. He knew he was first today – actually he was the only one today. As the class got under way, Andrew came to the front of the room and plucked a piece of paper out of the bowl, stared at it for a minute, and then gave it to the professor. His slip said "Tell of a time when you felt helpless."

Andrew stood in front of the class, took a deep breath, and began to talk. "Most of you know that I was a gunner on an airplane during the war, got shot down and spent two years in a POW camp." Andrew paused and then continued, "Many of you probably don't know that the POW camp I was at was a part of the underground, in fact our senior POW officer was the leader of our underground unit." He continued, picking up speed, "Our mission was to round up Allied fliers who were shot down and send them back to England, to collect intelligence and get it to London and to harass the enemy whenever and wherever we could." The other students in the class were starting to settle down and pay attention to what Andrew was saying. Some of the young men in the back of the room were actually thinking that this story could actually be interesting and leaned in a little closer.

Andrew continued, "My main job was demolition. I was in charge of building the bombs and other explosives that we used in our missions." There was some surprise from the other students, especially since Andrew was the last person anyone would expect to do anything dangerous. Andrew started to list things that they blew up, "We blew up bridges, trains, train tracks, train stations, airports and roads." His excitement was growing as he continued. "I made explosives to put in trucks, staff cars, motorcycles, wrapped as gifts, heck, I even made an explosive electric razor." He paused and looked around the classroom and saw that everyone was listening intently as he spoke.

He calmed a little as he continued. "Because I speak German fluently, I was also a part of any missions that involved impersonating officers. I could impersonate anyone from a private to a general." He laughed a bit and said, "We impersonated Abwehr, Lufftwaffe, SS and Gestapo agents. In fact, we infiltrated the local Gestapo headquarters so many times that Newkirk said we should have our own suite of offices there." He gave a half grin at that thought.

Then his face became serious as he said, "But, all those talents and gifts are useless," he said fluttering his hand, "when you can't use them to save your CO."

Everyone was hanging on his story as he took a deep breath and continued. "We had a series of missions to complete as our part of the final push to end the war. The colonel had been planning these for more than two months. It was now March and the colonel, Newkirk and LeBeau went to meet with the civilian underground one last time. After this meeting, everyone would be waiting for the signal to start our part. There was a Gestapo raid on the meeting. Now, all of the civilians had already left and our team was getting to ready to go out the back door when the Gestapo started to come in the front door." Andrew paused, took a deep breath, and then continued. "There was a firefight. Our guys got away, but they didn't get away clean. The colonel had been shot." Andrew heard a gasp from one of the girls in the class, but he continued talking. "Newkirk helped him back to camp and someone ran to get Wilson – he was our camp medic – to help stop the bleeding and bandage him up. There was no medicine in camp, no pain killers, no penicillin, no nothing! Just a little bit of aspirin."

"Then the colonel gave us the bad news. Major Hochstetter, from the local Gestapo headquarters, was at the raid and may have recognized him. The colonel said he wasn't positive but that it wouldn't be a surprise if he showed up. And, if he did, their entire operation was in trouble. We all jumped in with ideas of what to do – run and hide, take over the stalag (we were going to do that anyway, we just thought to move up the timeline), but the colonel said no to every idea we had. He didn't want a firefight where some of the prisoners could be killed, he said there was a reason for the takeover timeline and we had to stick to it. Then the colonel did something that made us all stop. He made us promise that we would do nothing when and if the Major showed up. He would deal with whatever happened and that if he were not available, then Kinch would be in charge."

Andrew stopped for a minute before continuing. "We all knew what the colonel meant without actually saying it. He meant that if the major killed him, we were to continue with the mission." He looked around the room, not really seeing the other students. Instead, his mind was in the barracks. "After the colonel went into his room, Newkirk reminded us that we had promised not to do anything after Hochstetter came into camp, but the colonel didn't say that we couldn't do anything before he came into camp. We all jumped up and ran down to the radio room in the tunnel. We knew that there had been a plan in the works to blow up Gestapo headquarters in town that had been put on hold when we started planning for our part in the final push, and it only took a minute for Kinch to ask the underground to carry out that plan and bomb the headquarters. The underground was more than willing to do whatever they could for the colonel and agreed. They said it would take at least an hour to get everything together and get the job done. All we could do was to tell them to hurry."

"Then we went back up to the barracks and sat around the table … and waited. There was nothing else to do but try not to think about what could happen. Would Hochstetter show up? Would the underground bomb the headquarters in time? Although nobody said it, we were all thinking, that the chance that the colonel would still be alive when the sun came up was pretty small."

At that, Carter refocused on the students in the class, and concluded, "And that's the time when I felt the most helpless." He then began to go back to his seat, not really registering the reaction of the rest of the class. Once they realized that Andrew was finished, their questions came fast and furious.

"What happened next?"

"Was the colonel all right?"

"Did they bomb the building in time?"

"What happened to the Gestapo major?"

Carter looked to Mr. Morris with some confusion. He had finished telling of a time he felt helpless and had concluded the assignment. Mr. Morris quickly asked Carter if he had time, even though class was almost finished for the day, to stay and tell the rest of his story. Carter did, so Mr. Morris told everyone to take ten minutes so that those that wanted to stay and hear the rest of the story could arrange transportation, if they needed to. As the class was doing that, Carter was reviewing the rest of the story in his head, making sure that nothing that he was about to share was classified. Once he was sure of that, he calmed down and prepared to tell the rest of the story

As the class settled back down, Mr. Morris noticed that there were a few more students ready to listen than there had been earlier. He knew that most of them were friends of the students in the class and had decided to listen to Andrew's story while waiting for their classmates.

Mr. Morris stood up and the class quieted. He summarized Andrew's story to the point where he said he felt helpless and then gestured to Andrew to continue.

As Andrew began to speak, he felt like he was transported, once again, back to the camp and the room that he and the others called home.

He continued the story by saying, "We finally all went to lie down on our bunks, but no one was able to sleep. All we could do was continue waiting and praying. It seemed like forever, but it was actually only about a half hour later when we heard cars. We all knew it was the Gestapo. As they threw open the door, we all got down from our bunks and watched as the Colonel was dragged from the room into the compound. The SS guards were hitting him with their rifles and one of them even hit the Colonel in the side of his face and we saw the Colonel hit the ground. We had no idea if he was dead or alive. And neither was the Major. He screamed at his soldiers who checked that the Colonel was still alive and then they dragged him across the compound and into the office. Schutz, our barrack's guard, pleaded with us to go back inside so that no one would get hurt. We all hurried inside and into the Colonel's room so that we could listen in on what was happening."

Andrew paused and he considered just how to describe what happened next. He finally confessed to the class, "I'm not sure how much to tell here. It may be very distressing for some of you to hear about the interrogation. If you weren't there, you don't really know how brutal war can be. The Colonel was almost beaten to death by the major, before word came of the explosion at Gestapo headquarters. We all cheered when we heard that, but then we heard a gunshot. I thought I would faint and I know the others were terrified about what happened, too. Imagine our relief when the Kommandant indicated he was alive."

Andrew took a deep breath and hurried to the end of the story, not wanting to dwell on the specific details of what happened. "The Colonel was taken to the Komandant's private quarters and the local doctor came from town to tend him, along with Wilson, our medic. The Colonel was unconscious for three days. After he regained consciousness, he was still in a lot of pain. We eventually got a medicine drop from London, and after the camp was liberated, he had to have some follow up surgery to fix the broken bone in his face.

A smile exploded across Andrew's face as he looked at everyone and said, " And, they all lived happily ever after." As some looked quizzically at him, Andrew explained, "His code name was Papa Bear and there was a happy ending." The others in the classroom smiled as they finally understood the joke.

Andrew looked a little uncomfortable as he said, "There really isn't much else to tell. We finished our mission and all made it home alive and well, and, here I am, going back to school and getting a chance to meet all you great people. Anyway, thanks for listening."

As the teacher dismissed the class, he noticed that a lot more of the students were talking to Andrew and taking the time to get to know him better. As Mr. Morris prepared to leave for the day, he thought about his next set of speeches for the class. This time it was going to be a demonstration speech, and the students could demonstrate whatever they wanted. Mr. Morris stopped as he walked out of the classroom door … Andrew had talked about demolition and explosives … he wouldn't demonstrate how to make a bomb, would he? Mr. Morris walked out of the building trying to convince himself that Andrew would have more sense than that, but he did take special notice of all the emergency exits as he left.


End file.
